


i don't wanna wake up wondering

by theviolonist



Category: Music RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M, OT3, Threesome, don't even ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-12 23:32:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/496890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kim giggles. "It's nice," she says, and then: "We should have sex."</p>
            </blockquote>





	i don't wanna wake up wondering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Verbyna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/gifts).



> For [verbyna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/verbyna/pseuds/Verbyna)'s prompt at the [multifandom rpf ficathon](http://portions-forfox.livejournal.com/32493.html): _some day you'll twist this in a song_.

He's smoking outside some party he was sent to without knowing what it's for (do these parties even need to be for something? Probably not) when she finds him.

 _Kim Kardashian in the flesh_ , he thinks, and wonders if he should be jealous, but instead the unsaid name rolls on his tongue and finds a rhythm, just like that. He could probably write about her, he realizes.

He stares. She laughs, thick and vulgar.

"Kanye!" she calls behind her, still laughing. "I found another lost popstar."

Frank thinks about the things he could say, _I'm not a popstar_ and _I'm not lost_ and _who was the other_ , but Kanye gets there before he can say any of them. That's always been a problem of his, thinking too much. In the end, the silence's not that bad.

Kanye laughs too when he gets there, thicker and more familiar. "Hey, man," he says, holding two fingers up in a vague peace sign.

"Don't blame him, last time it was Taylor Swift," Kim says, mistaking Kayne's laugh for derision. Or maybe not mistaking.

She catches on when Kanye brushes Frank's hip with light fingers. Damn him. Damn him and his fucking lack of rules, damn the fucker. Frank breathes through his nose.

"Oh, you know each other, then?" she asks airily, and he used to be able to tell when girls's eyes were sharp, but not this time. He'd like to think she's just another empty-headed socialite, but the old cliché is true, people in this business never are what they seem like. "I forget," she says, waving a vague hand. Kanye looks at him like, _she forgets_.

Kim comes closer. Maybe that's what she and Kanye bonded over, Frank thinks, lack of personal space and disregard of it when people actually have one. She smells good. He thinks, not entirely unkindly, that it's probably one of her 'fragrances', or whatever they call it in show business.

"You skipping the party?" she asks, her voice low. If Kanye wasn't just behind her, breathing down on her naked shoulder blade, he'd probably think she was hitting on him.

"Yeah," he says, and then, glancing at Kanye: "You know me."

It doesn't mean anything, but Kanye nods anyway. Frank gets a little lost in it; he always gets lost in Kanye and then pays the price for it, every single time. He's too young, that's what Kanye told him once, and Frank had to laugh, because -

"I don't," Kim says.

Frank stares at her blankly.

"Know you," she smiles.

"You're missing out," Kanye says. Frank wants to leave, this is unfair and he doesn't need it. He doesn't.

"Am I?"

Frank shrugs. "I probably don't compare to Taylor Swift, though," he says.

She laughs. This time it's raucous and still vulgar. He could probably get used to it, but that doesn't mean a lot, because you get used to everything. "True," she says. "She's pretty awesome."

Her smile makes it sound dirtier than it is, but then again, maybe not. You never know. It's not because Taylor wears white dresses and sings about first loves that she's a naïve virgin, that much Frank should know.

"You want to get out of here?" Kanye asks, wrapping an easy arm around Kim's middle. It sounds like the opening line for a teenage hook-up, except smoother. He's even got the shiny car to go with it.

Frank thinks for a second. Probably a bad idea, but the alternative is smoking here and getting drunk, and it makes him write songs, but it also makes him feel vaguely nauseous inside. "Yeah," he says, and crushes his cigarette stub under his heel. "Let's go."

They both smile. Didn't someone call them the best-matched couple in the business? Something about their egos. It's probably true, too, unless it's completely wrong.

They go. Kanye's limousine is sleek and black, and it brings them to his house smoothly, sliding like a sigh in the New York traffic. It's something Frank never gets tired of, the cabs and the blinking lights, but tonight he can't focus, not with the heat of Kim's thigh pressed against his.

He cocks his head at Kanye, asking, _no church in the wild?_ But rap has always been about nakedness, real life – this is just a particularly spot-on picture, the plush, zebra-striped body and heady drunkenness. _Let's do this_ , Frank thinks.

When they get to the house he helps Kim out of the car and she giggles, leaning heavily against him. Kayne holds out a hand too, keeping the car door open, and they're framing her like a Helmut Newton photograph except in color, dirtier, trashier.

"Thanks," she says, and pats Frank's arms, a little patronizing. She's drunk, but it doesn't make much of a difference. They're all drunk here.

There's already a party going on when they cross the door but Kanye doesn't seem surprised, acknowledges someone with a regal nod and leads them to the back. To an outsider, it would seem like they're strangers, but in reality both Kim and Frank know the house probably as well as him. Frank can't count the afternoons he spent here, drowning in lazy heat and smoke curlicues, but he can pinpoint the exact moment when it started to feel restrictive, _too much_. Sometimes he wishes he didn't know shame that well.

"We'll be good here," Kanye says, and starts stripping. He always looks humbler naked, without his extravagant attires and collections of clinking jewels, but he isn't.

Frank huffs a laugh. Kim strips as well. She looks the same naked as she does clothed, possibly because she never wears that much clothes anyway, curvy and glossy like a magazine cover.

"Come on, Frankie," Kanye says, waving a lazy hand. "Join us, yeah?"

It sounds like more than an invitation to climb with them in the bubbling bath, but Frank doesn't have much to lose. He knows how having your heart broken by Kanye West feels; he isn't sure he has much of a heart left to break, anyway.

He slides in the jacuzzi next to them. He likes that it's circular; that way he doesn't have to chose who to sit next, doesn't have to break them apart – God knows there's nothing he needs less than a Rebecca Black kind of dilemma. He smiles at himself.

He startles a bit when Kim's hand finds his knee under the water and a long shiver runs along his spine, more surprise than anything else. He catches Kanye's eye and thinks the shine in them is probably mistaken, but then remembers that Kanye is rarely wrong about anything.

Kim's manicured fingers squeeze his knee, and it makes him look back at her. He really _takes notice_ of her for the first time, beyond the pictures he saw in the various _People_ she made the cover of in the last year: her glowing skin, disproportionate breasts that seem to float in the water, her long, shiny black hair. She's kind of good-looking, if you like the type. Frank tries to remember what he heard about her, but it's all a jumble of words amongst which only one surfaces; _trash, trash, trash_.

"So, how did you and Kanye meet?" she asks. He would think it was a generic question if she wasn't looking at him so intently. Her tongue runs on her lips; it's hot but absent-minded.

"How does Kanye ever meet people?"

She laughs. "I guess I'll never get music," she says like it's not a big deal. "Did you sleep together?"

Frank shouldn't be surprised or shocked by this kind of questions anymore. Kanye laughs comfortably behind her, his arm heavy-looking on her shoulders. His fingers play with the hair at her nape, weaving effortlessly through the petroleum black. Frank glances at Kanye, seeking the answer. Kanye doesn't give it to him.

"Yeah," Frank says, and tries not to let his useless love story spill from his lips.

Kim looks strangely proud, and jubilant. "I knew it!" she says, high-pitched, and punches Kanye's arm lightly. "You asshole." She chuckles.

"It was long ago," Frank feels the need to specify.

She looks back at him, looking surprised for a second, and then laughs, her teeth unnaturally white. "Oh, I know, honey. It was something else, don't worry."

Frank feels left out for a second; the reminder that couples have secrets, even the couples he used to have one half of (if you can even say 'have' there, but you probably can't), hits in the stomach and leaves him feeling strangely queasy. Then it subsides and he feels normal again, sort of empty like he always does. It's not an entirely bad feeling.

Kanye produces a joint out of nowhere and they smoke it leisurely, mouth slack and filled with bittersweet smoke. The joint passes from hand to hand, glowing like a minuscule Chinese lantern in the dark.

Kim giggles. "It's nice," she says, and then: "We should have sex."

Frank chokes on the smoke he has in his mouth, coughs. Kim laughs again. Yeah, they're probably good for each other. Frank was never comfortable with all this shit, Hollywood and the like, rapper or not. It gets boring after a while; Frank is a nice boy at heart, try as he might to forget it (but maybe he just doesn't want to change, doesn't try hard enough).

"I agree," Kanye says, and Frank figures, why not, he's never been able to say no to Kanye anyway. What's it going to change? A lot, probably.

"Yeah, okay," he says, and then, because he needs courage for this, he takes another hit before repeating, "okay."

Kim half-smiles. It looks a little indulgent, like she's older than... however old she is.

"Come here, darling," she says – drawls.

Kissing Kim Kardashian is – nice, probably not something you'd write a song about (but then, maybe it is). Her lips are soft and she smells heady, like a woman, her breasts pressing against Frank's chest. It's been a long time since Frank's kissed a woman, but it doesn't feel that different, not with her.

Kanye looks at him, oblique, and Frank figures he should probably have closed his eyes, but Kanye just cocks his head a little, like he's proud of her. Kim pulls away and licks her lips just to be outrageous. Kanye kisses her like he doesn't have a point to make, like he just wants to taste Frank on her lips. It's weird – the good kind of weird, because, well, kissing, but still. Weird.

Frank resists the urge to ask questions, try to put a label on all this. He has this thing where he doesn't like unlabelled things, they make him nervous and itchy and gray areas are just not his thing. He likes knowing the difference between friends and lovers, the exact percentage of why it isn't what it could be. But this is – it will do, for now. Frank is drunk enough to forget about his OCD for a little while, probably.

"I read something -" he starts. It's not a good start; he wishes he could cram it back into his mouth, chew down on the ill-chosen words.

"Don't believe anything you read," Kim says derisively. "Or anything you hear, for that matter. It's Hollywood, you know."

At first, Frank had wanted to believe that LA wasn't all it was cracked up to be, that all the horrors people told about it were just part of an exaggerated tale. He'd gotten corrected pretty fast. He doesn't fit in too badly, in the end.

"50 cents said something about Kim I liked," Kanye says, and it's funny because for him words are that, poetry, and truth or not truth it doesn't really matter to him. He said a lot of shit just because it sounded good. Frank kind of admires him for that, except when he hates him for it. "What was it?"

Kim frowns. It probably wasn't something complimentary, Frank thinks. The world doesn't have a lot of complimentary things to say about Kim Kardashian. Which makes the fact that she earns a living by doing a TV show (not that she needs to earn anything, but hey, Frank's not judging) a little twisted, but you know, that's how it works. A lot of things in Frank's life are pretty fucking twisted.

"No, no," Kanye says, grinning widely. He squeezes Kim's shoulder, and it seems to appease her. "He said, 'One man's trash is another man's treasure.' I liked that. That was cool."

"Are you saying I'm trash?" Kim asks shrilly. She isn't serious, except maybe she is, a little.

"I'm not the one who said it," Kanye points out, and he shrugs. He kisses Kim's throat and she brings up a hand to brush it against Frank's cheek, like she's a puppet and someone's pulled an imaginary string. Frank's startled but he doesn't move.

It goes like that for a little while, Kim kissing him and then Kanye and then Kanye kisses him and it buzzes on Frank's lips like electricity, little spikes sharp and painful on his skin, and Frank moans and he's lightheaded and Kim kisses him again and it all goes on and on like some sort of kissing Ferris wheel.

"So," Frank asks when he breaks away from Kanye for the second time, panting a little, "am I better than Taylor Swift?"

"Yes," Kanye says, too quickly, and Kim laughs. Frank isn't sure she understands, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

"Don't mind him, they have a track record," Kim chuckles. She cocks her head. "Taylor is pretty ace at kissing, though."

Frank tries not to choke on air. He really shouldn't be surprised by these things. The image of Taylor and Kim kissing draws itself before his eyes without him even trying. It's hot.

They end up fucking – not there, in the bed, in the stupid black silk sheets with Radiohead on because there are few things Kanye does without a soundtrack. It feels like melancholy and this aching sort of pain, pleasure pinpricks at the back of Frank's legs. He thinks about his songs, and he wonders if they'll ever feel adequate again. That's the thing about music: once he's written it it doesn't feel like it matters anymore, it's all black and inconsequential and he needs to do it all over again.

He thinks back to Kanye's 'life lessons'; he screws his eyes closed and he thinks about enjoying the moment, the way Kim's wide hips fit in his palms, Kanye's fingers brushing against his forehead, almost like a blessing. His grandmother used to do that, too, brush a cross on his forehead with her thumb. 'To protect you,' she said, before sending him away.

It's good, really. Kim's gloss tastes fruity, and the soothing softness of Kanye's skin is the only thing on his mind when he drifts off, his limbs sore and soaked with laughter.

+

It's weeks after when it happens again. Channel Orange has been doing good, people showing support and there are meetings with 'good figures', whatever that means. Frank stays slumped on his couch and watches TV, does interviews, sees friends. He runs into Taylor Swift at an event and can't talk to her, ends up coughing his laughter into his fist and apologizing too much.

Kanye calls him once or twice, to talk about business and life and the things Kanye talks about, always different and multicolored, smelling like alluring novelty, but he doesn't mention it. Frank doesn't mind. It's possible Kanye forgot it altogether, buried it in the haze of his colorful dreams between the fond remembrances and the crazy technicolor fantasies. If he didn't have teeth marks behind his left ear and the trace of nails in the cradle of his elbow, Frank would probably think it's a dream too.

Kim only calls once. He tries to imagine her sitting cross-legged on the couch, her long nails and her thighs, Juicy Couture sweatpants bunched at the waist.

"Hey," she says.

"Hey," he answers, surprised.

She isn't one to beat around the bush. "You wanna do that again sometimes? It was fun, yeah." It's not a question.

A beat. "I don't know," he says. And then: "Sorry, it's just – do you mind?"

She laughs. "Don't worry, baby. Kanye and I have plenty of fantastic sex on our own."

He kind of wants to say, _it's just that I'm not like you_ or even _have you listened to my songs? There's one about a guy I loved who didn't love me like I wanted and it was him_. In the end he says: "Can I come 'round one of these days?"

"You're always welcome," she says, her voice lazy.

They chat a little more about things that don't really matter (her show, his music, Kanye, the color of the sky). Frank couldn't say who hangs up first.

+

It's not that Frank doesn't love them – he does, he does. He loves them like you love something simple, like he loves pineapple and running his finger on a vinyl. He envies Kanye for being able to not watch further, even with this mind that runs wild – Frank can't do that. He tries (he snorts up cocaine with rolled-up bills and throws his head back to laugh through the dizziness and into the ecstasy), but it doesn't work, doesn't last – doesn't stick.

He wishes he could come back and lie down with them. He'd pour them glasses of wine and they'd sip it in highball glasses, and Kanye would say something about Kim, something half-nice and half-insulting, and they'd splash around and fight and get bored of each other.

But that's not how it works. Maybe it's better, in a way, that Frank is there to tell the story, to put them back in order, back on their clean staves.

(Kim's a wild comma, curling extravagantly over the sharp end of Kanye's semicolon; and Frank, well, Frank is a pair of brackets. Where he starts and where he ends are two definite places, and he always carries a lot with him, pointy letters and periods and backspaces. He doesn't mind.)

They seem to be waiting for him when he comes back. They're sprawled on the couch, smoking – they smile up at him.

"Frankie," Kanye greets, handing him the joint. "Take a hit."

It goes easy like it never does after that, the familiar sour taste settling in his mouth, gentle buzz running through his veins. They fuck lazily, moving the less they can. Frank's dick slips out of Kim's mouth with a wet pop when she's blowing him and she laughs, leaning in the hand that Kanye's got cupping her skull, his fingers threading her thick locks. Pleasure pierces Frank's mind like a drunk plane crashing against his eyelids.

Frank is half-asleep when Kanye's voice resounds in the silence. "You gonna write a song, yeah?"

Frank could pretend not to understand; he doesn't. He tries to shrug, but his shoulders are mashed against the fabric of the couch. "Yeah," he says eventually. "Probably. I write songs about everything."

Kanye laughs, thick and like he understands the things Frank doesn't say. Kim mewls in his lap, chuckles around a mouthful of water.

"But _this_ ," she says when she's finished swallowing, after they've watched the caramel sinews twist themselves on her throat. "You're gonna write about this, yeah?" It sounds like it's what she wanted all along; it wouldn't even be that surprising.

Kanye laughs. "You're gonna make a sad-ass song again, I can tell."

God, the fucker, the fucker, Frank thinks blurrily.

"All his songs are depressing," Kim says poutily, and Frank wants to rise against that, they aren't, they really aren't, but he's too tired.

Kim pets his belly. "Ssh," she says. He can't determine if it's mocking or not, can't see her face in the darkness. It probably wouldn't help a lot, what with the collagen and all that shit. "It's okay. Not everyone can be awesome like us."

Kanye laughs, bending down to kiss her thigh. Kim giggles. They _are_ good together. It shouldn't be surprising to Frank, but it is anyway.

It kind of wakes Frank up. He watches them, tries to decipher their traits in the night, big foreheads, loud eyes. Not much luck, he thinks as he lets himself fall softly back on the cushions.

"Stop," Kanye says, probably narrowing his eyes at him.

"What?"

"Writing the song. You'll do that later. Let's have another round."

"I'm tired," Kim says, even though she doesn't sound tired. He's never seen them sleep; they're always up later than him at night and before him in the morning.

Kanye hums. "I guess you're right."

"I'm always right."

He smells before he feels Kim leaning down to kiss his lips, sweat and something that's probably supposed to suggest tropical flowers. "You can twist us later," she says against her lips. It sounds dirty, probably on purpose.

Kanye laughs behind her; his hand comes up to squeeze Frank's knee.

+

It's years later when Frank writes the song. Kim sends him a huge bouquet of ugly tulips; the card has nothing but a tiny smiley face on it and, written in Kanye's chicken scrawl on the back, something Frank can't decipher.

He doesn't ask.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Risk?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1723310) by [rockitt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockitt/pseuds/rockitt)




End file.
